HIROTEC Selects ThingWorx Platform from PTC for Remote Monitoring and Real-Time Insight into its World-Wide Production Systems

PTC today announced that HIROTEC Corporation, a globally recognized manufacturing equipment and parts supplier, selected the ThingWorx® Platform from PTC to remotely monitor its factory operations to improve operational efficiency and factory quality.

For over 60 years, top vehicle producers, such as Mazda and General Motors, have relied upon HIROTEC for its proven, high-quality automotive components and production machines. With 27 facilities in nine countries around the world, this parts and tooling supplier designs and builds approximately 8 million closures and 1.8 million exhaust systems each year, making it one of the largest private production companies in today’s global automotive market.

After an exhaustive due diligence process, during which dozens of software vendors were evaluated, HIROTEC selected ThingWorx for its rapid application enablement, connectivity, machine learning capabilities, augmented reality, and integration with leading device cloud offerings. ThingWorx is expected to:

Reduce downtime caused by unplanned events by sending breaking news alerts of the errors to the proper parties and predicting the amount of time until a system fails

Improve the quality of products by providing a full digital reporting of products produced

Reduce delays in decision making by enabling team members with real-time detailed data and creating dynamic visualizations of the status of production systems

Identify trouble spots within the facility by observing real-time data on the factory floor with augmented reality (AR) providing a bird’s eye view

HIROTEC intends to set up a model production line this year and then utilize this model to implement the system globally.

“With ThingWorx, we are able to combine HIROTEC’s expertise in world class manufacturing with PTC’s extensive IoT solutions ecosystem to bring rapid value to our stakeholders,” said Kazuyoshi Takahashi, general manager, Advanced Engineering Center, HIROTEC.

“The combination of ThingWorx with our existing production systems offers us the connectivity and detailed analytics to rapidly visualize and analyze our operations, enabling further productivity and quality improvement.”

“We are very pleased that we chose ThingWorx as we continue towards digital excellence.”

HIROTEC America first implemented ThingWorx for full remote visualization of the real-time status of 8 Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Machines in 2016. With this success at HIROTEC America, HIROTEC Corporation in Japan implemented ThingWorx for full remote visualization of real-time and historical data from an automated inspection system for exhaust lines in 2016. Then, in 2017, they deployed ThingWorx on an entire automotive door production line. HIROTEC expects to implement AR and predictive analytics technology in the future to further improve productivity.